FE modding (Community hack: interest?)

[Alusq]

Nobody's posted anything modding-related here yet, so I figured I would post a thread gauging interest... which is likely nil, but hey, posting anyway!

I guess the more accurate question would be: is there anyone on FEP still dabbling in FE modding? I know that there was modding discussion on the oldFEP forums, so I assume that it's okay here (as long as we don't post roms, obviously). Anyone working on their own projects/interested in possibly starting a short group project?

Yes, this post is almost entirely composed of questions, but if it wasn't then it would just be me spouting off about my projects with no real discussion incentives. I'll also insert a shameless plug while I'm at it: GhastStation and I are hosting a FE modding workshop on Skype at 19:00 EST today (Saturday) where we'll explain some modding basics to people who are interested. Might be futile to ask here, buuuuut... anyone interested in attending? I feel that "make thing -> people play thing -> talk about thing -> make more things" seems like a pretty promising process for generating forum activity.

[Falaflame]

Well for there to be an active discussion, there has to be a common interest. I did try to spark up modding discussions long ago on the new forums by having a subforum installed for it, and it never really took off. Part of the problem was, a lot of people thought of the idea as cool, but not cool enough for interest in partaking in such activities that would bolster the attention of modding. That may just be my theory of what happened, really.

But I will hope this attempt will be a lot more successful than mine was. If you know what to do, you might just pull it off.

[Alusq]

Ah, I see. It's probably just as well there's just one forum for fan works anyway. I'm aware that there has to be interest, which is why I'm posting to see if anyone here is still interested in modding in the first place.

So you think people liked the idea of doing more modding but didn't want to commit to learning it?

[Speedy - IX]

Community project???? (I mean it is kinda small right now xD)

[Falaflame]

(11-15-2014, 08:03 PM)Alusq Wrote: Ah, I see. It's probably just as well there's just one forum for fan works anyway. I'm aware that there has to be interest, which is why I'm posting to see if anyone here is still interested in modding in the first place.

So you think people liked the idea of doing more modding but didn't want to commit to learning it?

It's the reason why I didn't bring back the subforum when this new forum software was installed. The people liked the idea, but they weren't really compelled enough to commit to learning the arts and commiting to a project.

That's the reason why it never really took off. We only had one big project, and it was shortly discontinued. There were a few small projects I could remember, but none got past the beginning phase. (if I remember correctly, goldenquagsire was heading the big project)

(11-16-2014, 12:18 AM)Speedy - IX Wrote: Community project???? (I mean it is kinda small right now xD)

I wouldn't oppose to a community project. Just make sure not to let the community project team split off like Tactics Universe did. I mean, sure that's how The Last Promise happened, but Blazer had to go through hell and back to get it done.

[Alusq]

Speedy - IX Wrote:Community project???? (I mean it is kinda small right now xD)

We've got a very small community, so how about a small community project to match?
Like, "one chapter" small. If enough people like that, we can continue from there... and it doesn't have to technically be a one-chapter hack, but I would rather start with something that can stand on its own. If it turns out we like what we've made, we can add onto it.

Falaflame Wrote:It's the reason why I didn't bring back the subforum when this new forum software was installed. The people liked the idea, but they weren't really compelled enough to commit to learning the arts and commiting to a project.

Regarding committing to learning the arts— I always thought that that was what made community projects appealing. You don't need to know the entire toolset to have a hand in one: if you only make sprites, you can submit sprites; if you only make maps, you can submit maps; etc. I can do just about everything but custom ASM and writing an interesting story, which is pretty funny when anyone playing my stuff sees that I barely have an excuse for all the characters to be where they are. It's also why I'm a big fan of self-containing, cleanly-resolved subplots... because I'm not skilled enough to tie them together. xD

Also, ditto on TU-turned-TLP. I'd rather not even look funny at the idea of finishing a 30-chapter epic on one's own when making a 10-chapter one is already daunting.

[Breadophile]

I can write an interesting story. It just takes forever and half-way through gets classified as a visual novel.

[Speedy - IX]

1 chapter eh?

I'd contribute sprites lol (mainly mugs)

[Falaflame]

(11-17-2014, 01:26 AM)Alusq Wrote: Regarding committing to learning the arts— I always thought that that was what made community projects appealing. You don't need to know the entire toolset to have a hand in one: if you only make sprites, you can submit sprites; if you only make maps, you can submit maps; etc. I can do just about everything but custom ASM and writing an interesting story, which is pretty funny when anyone playing my stuff sees that I barely have an excuse for all the characters to be where they are. It's also why I'm a big fan of self-containing, cleanly-resolved subplots... because I'm not skilled enough to tie them together. xD

Also, ditto on TU-turned-TLP. I'd rather not even look funny at the idea of finishing a 30-chapter epic on one's own when making a 10-chapter one is already daunting.

What we want to do is kind of have an entire team heading into a project. You'll want someone who can handle the in-game code. You'll want someone who has some knowledge of ASM. You'll want someone who can work with sprites (beit maps, mugs, battle sprites, and the like), and though optional, you'll want someone who can work with music composition. Once you have those guys, I feel you're heading in a good direction when making a community project.

As far as TU-turned-TLP, Blazer actually had a team behind him when the mod was in the works. But then the entire team grew extremely lazy and Blazer ended up doing most of the work. By the time it got to about Ch20, the team essentially split up. And being someone who wanted to finish what was started, he had to do the rest of the 10 chapters by himself.

You may think just doing the 10 chapters by your lonesome is daunting enough, but that's not enough for him. Blazer also had to deal with people like Neir (or whatever he's called, he was "the White Knight" or whatever) withdrawing his sprites midway through the hack's progression, and a bunch of other community project team drama along the way. Not only did he have get someone to redesign more than half of the entire cast's sprites, but he had to replace a few characters entirely. Plus he had to pretty much re-write the ENTIRE GODDAMN SCRIPT to reflect such changes.

Yeah, development for TU/TLP was a bitch.

[Alusq]

I know the story of TLP well enough; don't worry. Blazer's a determined masochist, and TU/TLP's development is probably one of the top contenders for an historical saga as far as FE-community history goes. From what I understand, he pretty much had to build TLP's story from scratch in the last 1/3 of the game after the initial 2/3 full of various forms of glop and goo (to put it using nice words) from the community phase... and then change it all to match a non-Elibe setting when that became a thing. I was actually surprised that there weren't /more/ differences between the last version of TU and the first of TLP; it was finished very faithfully in that regard. But maybe I was just too distracted by all the awesome stuff at the end.

Anyway, that's why I want to start with a one-chapter hack if we're ever doing a community thing: we can hopefully just get it done before it has the chance to descend into clashing over differences/laziness and inevitably fizzle out. ^ш^
As for custom ASM, unless there's a specific game mechanic that we want to change, I don't think it's imperative to have an expert in that, given that we can always draw from resources that are already out there if we want to make something more unique in gameplay terms. That said, if there /was/ a willing ASMer here, I'm sure their talents wouldn't go to waste.

We should have a list of what everyone can/is willing to do. For organisation's sake I don't think it's necessary to make an entire new thread for this now, but if we do get a team and get ideas flowing, then we can start up all the usual fanfare of a community mod. Until then, I won't jump the gun.
I'll go ahead and volunteer for event writing up-front, since I'm fairly experienced in it and know that eventing isn't exactly the thing that most people want to do. Guess I should also volunteer for music insertion, because that's tedious as hell too.
Of course, there can be multiple people working on one field since I imagine we'll have lots of spriters.

·Events
·Story writing (ideally we would have a situation that can be resolved in one medium-sized chapter, but could be expanded upon if we wanted to make more.) — Breadophile?
·Script writing (i.e. insertion-friendly dialogue)
·Sprites (portrait. I think for battle sprites we're better off pulling from what's already available, unless someone really wants to make battle sprites?) — Speedy?
·Map design (as in level design. If you're not a pro at making the map look good, we can always pass it to someone else to touch it up)
·Some sort of committee to decide on lower-level gameplay stuff: weapon and class tweaks, game mechanics, etc. This category seems like superfluous Nightmare edits at first, but if done right it can make a mod memorable imo.

I can fill in for whatever slots we don't find anyone for. In addition, everyone would probably get to have at least a few characters each, given how small our team may end up being. It depends on the size of the chapter, too (I propose something that takes about 20 turns to finish; 30 if you're taking your time or unskilled).

... All that being said, better ask again: anyone else actually interested in partaking in this???

[Breadophile]

If I were to do that part, I would not mind being committed to it if it was a 1-chapter game.

However, if we were to do more, I would wait for FEXNA to come out. I suppose it doesn't really matter if I just wrote a story, since that isn't my problem, but there's so much more you can do with FEXNA.

[Alusq]

Alright, yay!

As someone who has no idea when FEXNA will be released (does anyone even have an idea?), "wait for FEXNA" = "do nothing" to me. I'd sooner learn to make an original game that I can call my own before learning another platform for making FE fangames.
... And I really can't stress enough how unappealing an option waiting for anything is to me. I'm pretty sure we could make at least several one-chapter hacks before FEXNA gets released.

[Breadophile]

The basis for any hack is the gameplay. But that is already determined and any changes to it would be minor at most. So the next part is the story.

One chapter isn't really enough time to make some deep plot. Instead I came up with a comedy. I'd rather not discuss it here, though. Don't wanna spoil it, even if it is a comedy.

[Alusq]

Yeah, I agree comedy would be the best for a short hack.

If you don't want to discuss it here, shall we start up a skype chat for those interested... or since we probably still don't have enough people for a non-dead chat group, post the exposition/hook in spoiler tags or something? People could be more motivated to take part once they're shown the story they'll be helping to tell. Or something.

edit: My laptop with most of my FE modding stuff on it was recently stolen, so until I get that situation stabilised I'll be pretty inactive about this.

[Speedy - IX]

I'm mostly a numbers and mugs guy about this type of thing anyway, I haven't been doing battle sprites long enough in order to do full customs xD